


Take a Deep Breath

by lilbluednacer



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, F/M, Relationship Study, Spells & Enchantments, Stydia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 11:16:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10966104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilbluednacer/pseuds/lilbluednacer
Summary: "The test is structured in ascending levels," Stiles explains. "Like a video game. You have to complete each level to move on to the next. If you fail to complete a level it'll start over from the beginning until you figure it out.""What happens if I don't complete all the levels?" Lydia asks."Then you won't wake up."





	Take a Deep Breath

**Author's Note:**

> _“you might not have been my first love_  
>  _but you were the love that made_  
>  _all other loves seem_  
>  _irrelevant_ ”  
> ― Rupi Kaur

She wakes up on a train.

Lydia sits up in her seat, hands going down to clutch at the burgundy crushed velvet upholstery. Her head turns to the window but it's pitch black outside, she can't see anything except her own reflection.

Her hair is down, falling in loose curls over her shoulders. She's wearing a dress, a pale blue floaty dream of a dress with a strapless fitted bodice and voluminous long skirt that she doesn't remember purchasing. Lydia reaches down and smooths out the skirt, the fabric lighter than air under her fingertips.

There are other passengers on the train but every time she turns her head their faces slide out of her field of vision.

The train grinds to a halt.

"Please exit through the sliding doors. Please exit through the sliding doors," a pleasant female voice announces.

Lydia stands up and follows the sea of faceless passengers off the train and into the station. It doesn't look like a normal train station though - the ceiling is a glittering glass dome and instead of benches there are long velvet couches.

People move all around her but she can't quite catch what they look like. Their bodies are all nebulous, they don't even make any sound as they walk around her, like she's the only girl alive in a sea of ghosts. 

Suddenly she feels afraid. She spins around in a circle, the skirt of her dress swirling around her legs.

Where is she?

"Lydia!" 

Her name echoes off the high ceiling, reverberating through the cavernous room. Lydia whips her head around and there, at the opposite side of the station, is a boy wearing blue jeans and a red and green plaid shirt and this boy isn't like the others, his face is crystal clear, even all the way over there. Lydia can clearly make out amber eyes, a pert upturned nose and a scattering of moles.

"Stiles!"

Lydia runs and runs and so does he, they meet in the middle of the station, arms flinging around each other, Lydia's face pressed into the hollow of his throat.

"Hey, hey, it's okay, you're okay." His hands cup her cheeks so he can tilt her face up to look at him.

"Where are we?" she whispers. "What's going on?"

Something flashes across his face. "You don't remember what happened?"

She shivers in his arms, something slithering in the back of her mind, hazy and just out of reach. Stiles looks apprehensive, thumbs sliding over her cheekbones. He glances around the station and sighs, eyes rolling up to the ceiling before muttering, _fucking train stations_ , and tugs her over to sit on an unoccupied cream velvet sofa.

"Stiles, what the hell is going on?"

He reaches over and picks up her hands so he can weave their fingers together. "Look, I don't know how long Scott can keep me here so I have to give you the short version, okay?"

Lydia blinks. "What are you talking about?"

His thumb runs over the back of her hand. "You're asleep right now."

" _What?_ "

"I'm in your head."

Lydia stares at him. "I don't understand."

"There was this thing with a witch, we managed to royally piss her off even though it's not _our_ fault her freaky boyfriend is a total dick, but anyway, she, um." Stiles swallows thickly. "She put you into an enchanted sleep."

"So... I'm dreaming?"

He shakes his head. "Not exactly."

"What does that mean?" she asks sharply.

"We don't know everything yet, Deaton's working on it. I guess this shit is kind of rare but he, uh, had some idea what's happening. They're trying to break the spell from the outside but Deaton thinks you can break out of it on your own."

Lydia raises an eyebrow. "And does he know how?"

Stiles looks grave suddenly. "There's going to be some kind of test."

"A test?"

"It's structured in ascending levels," Stiles explains. "Like a video game. You have to complete each level to move on to the next. If you fail to compete a level it'll start over from the beginning until you figure it out."

"What happens if I don't compete all the levels?"

Stiles squeezes her hands tightly. "Then you won't wake up."

There's a strange sucking sound, like the air is getting pulled out of the room. She launches herself at Stiles and tries to wrap her body around him but she falls through empty space, everything goes black, and she falls and falls-

"Fields Medal." 

The words roll off her tongue, crisp and smooth, just like the first time she said them. Across from her Stiles stands in a suit with a buzzed head in the decorated gym and she's wearing her metallic cream-silver dress with the black sash and the rushing in her ears is so strong it threatens to knock her over.

And then Stiles says, "What?" and the background sound stops with a distinct pop.

_There's going to be some kind of test._

This is a test.

Lydia smiles smugly to herself. She's Lydia Martin, she is a conquerer of tests, and she knows exactly what she's supposed to remember, remembers what comes next.

She gets out of her chair and walks to him. "Nobel doesn't have a prize for mathematics. A Fields Medal's the one I'll be winning."

She recite the words perfectly from memory and tugs on his arm to pull him onto the dance floor. They dance while Lydia frantically tries to figure this out. If this is a test it's an easy one so far. Is she supposed to keep doing this? Playing along at this simulation, a recreation of a memory?

What exactly is she being tested on?

"You okay?" Stiles asks softly.

Something in her chest cracks as she steps away from him. "Just need to take a little break."

How did she not notice before, when it really happened, how quickly his face fell, and how fast he tried to hide it?

Because he loved her, and she loved Jackson.

"You mean you need to go find Jackson."

 _I'm sorry_ , she thinks as she walks away, steeling herself, knowing exactly what she's doing this time, her heartbeat pounding in her ears. She walks out into the hallway towards the back doors of the school, pushing through streamers and balloons.

Lydia pauses with her hands against the cool metal of the door, knowing exactly what's waiting out there on the lacrosse field. _It's not real_ , she reminds herself, _it isn't real_ , and she pushes the door open and -

"Fields Medal."

Across from her Stiles stares. "What?"

"Nobel doesn't have a prize for mathematics. A Fields Medal's the one I'll be winning."

The words spill out of her mouth automatically as she walks towards him, like she's being pulled to Stiles by a magnet.

_If you fail to complete a level it'll start over from the beginning until you figure it out._

She failed, Lydia realizes with a stunned shock as she and Stiles start to dance. How could she fail, what did she do wrong?

His hands are warm on her skin, more real than how things usually feel in a dream; like this is really him, like he's real. But he's not, she knows he's not. "You okay?" Stiles asks.

She wants to cry suddenly, she wants to confess that she doesn't understand, doesn't know what to do, wants to tell him that she needs him to help her figure it out. But this Stiles is just a dream, an enchantment, nothing more than a memory.

She swallows tightly. "Just need to take a little break."

"You mean you need to go find Jackson."

Lydia pauses, her hands still looped around the back of his neck. This is almost where the level stopped, if she walks away this will end and start over and she's suddenly afraid that she'll get trapped here, stuck in a loop. She has to figure this out.

She thought she was supposed to follow along, recreate the scene, but maybe that's not it, maybe that's not how to pass the test.

Maybe she's supposed to change it.

"No," she says. She lays her head on his shoulder, his starchy stiff collar under her cheek. "I don't need to be anywhere but here."

It feels so right, to let herself hold onto him, this old version of Stiles, young and gentle, Stiles, who was always trying to save her even when she didn't appreciate him, didn't understand the way she does now.

The strange sucking sound comes back and Stiles dissolves against her fingers as Lydia falls into a sea of black.

*

"See, that's the problem. You - you don't care about getting hurt. But you know how I'll feel? I'll be devastated. And if you die, I will literally go out of my freakin' mind. You see, death doesn't happen to you, Lydia. It happens to everyone around you, okay? To all the people left standing at your funeral, trying to figure out how they're gonna live the rest of their lives now without you in it? Huh? And look at my face, huh? Come on, you actually think this was meant to hurt me? Um - I'm so sorry."

They're in Stiles' bedroom. She knows this night, it's the night Jackson died on the lacrosse field, the night she saved him with their love, and for her trouble Jackson was taken away across the ocean.

And here Stiles is, with his bloodied bruised face, and he's about to leave with her because she'll threaten to go alone, and Stiles would never, _will_ never let her walk into danger by herself.

"What happened to your face?" she asks.

It's not what she's supposed to say. She's supposed to say, _It's okay, I'll go find him myself_ , but she passed the first level and she did that by staying, not by storming off to find Jackson.

It's not much of a strategy but it's worked once, she can try it again here, attempt to figure out the pattern, find the clues to breaking the enchantment.

Something dark flicks across Stiles' face. "I already told you, it's nothing."

She steps close to him, so she can reach up and examine his face. Why didn't she ask him about this later, why did she let him brush it off? "It doesn't look like nothing."

He shudders under her touch. "It's fine. I'm fine, Lydia."

"Someone hurt you," she protests softly. Did anyone ask him what happened this night? Did anyone care? 

It makes her feel sick suddenly, that Stiles got hurt and she never made him tell her why, that it got pushed to the side, _he_ got pushed to the side. 

"It doesn't matter."

"Don't say that," she whispers. This feels right, she's doing it, she is supposed to change things. It's like seeing points of possibilities, places in her past when she could've chosen differently, chosen Stiles the way he always chose her. "Of course it matters."

He crumbles under her touch and his room dissolves in a swirl of black.

*

" _Allison!_ " Lydia collapses into Stiles' limp form, the air wet and dank in the tunnel.

No. _No_.

She cries into Stiles' shirt, her throat raw. Why are they here, what are they doing here? How can she change this?

Lydia gulps air, trying to think. If the level starts here than Allison is - she's already - 

Stiles stirs under her, bruised looking eyelids fluttering open. "L-l'dia?"

"Hey," she sniffs. She brings her hands up to cup around his cheeks; he's so cold, the bones of his face too sharp in her hands.

She's supposed to drag him up now, put her hands under his armpits and haul him to his feet, stumble out of the tunnel just in time for Aiden - Aiden -

Is that why they're here? Is she supposed to save Aiden? 

It doesn't make sense, it doesn't fit the pattern she's trying to establish, but she can hear herself telling him that _he was a bad guy, and she didn't want to be with the bad guys_ , and guilt swirls hot under her skin.

She has to try. 

"Stiles," she murmurs. He's looking at her hazily, eyes unfocused. "I'm going to be right back, okay? I'll be right back."

She leans in and drops a soft kiss on his forward before pushing herself up off the wet concrete and runs down the tunnel towards the entrance, runs toward that dim light except there is no light, there's only darkness -

_"Allison!"_

Lydia falls against Stiles and shuts her eyes, beating her fists angrily against her legs. She failed.

Of course she failed, she thinks furiously at herself. She left Stiles.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs, feeling his icy cheek against hers. "I'm so sorry."

He stirs against her, blinking slowly awake. It's terrifying to see him like this again, half-dead and fighting to the end. She wants to put her hands all over him, breathe life into his lungs, scream at him for almost leaving her like this.

"L-l'dia," he slurs.

"I'm here," she assures him. "I'm here." She crouches on the slimy concrete, her hands grasping his arms. "Come on Stiles."

He's light, too light but he's tall, their centers of gravity are mismatched, and she stumbles down the tunnel with his arm slung over her shoulders, thinking of Ariel pulling an unconscious Prince Eric to shore, moving with a steely determination.

Lydia and Stiles reach the end of the tunnel and she drags him headfirst into a void of darkness-

" _Allison!_ "

Lydia falls into Stiles, sobbing. If she continues to fail she's going to be stuck here, forced to relive Allison's death over and over again. She clutches onto his shirt, feeling him take shallow, gravelly breaths against her.

He exhales into her ear, one of his fingers twitching against her wrist. "L-l'dia?"

"Stiles," she cries softly. It's so quiet here, in the aftermath of her scream, the only sounds a slow echoing drip of water and the unsettling rattle of Stiles' breathing. "Stiles, I don't know what to do."

He blinks heavily at her, his eyes dark and empty.

Lydia gasps for air and suddenly she's furious, at herself, at him, the real Stiles, for not telling her what to do before disappearing, at whoever did this to her.

"Tell me what to do," she begs him. "I don't know what to do." 

She doesn't see it, how there's any choice here, and it doesn't make sense. She leaves him, it ends, she takes him with her, it ends, because there's nothing to do, there's nothing here but a broken boy and a screaming girl who loves him even if she doesn't know it yet.

"Tell me what to do!" Lydia screams. She falls forward, hands flying out, smacking against the wall of the tunnel behind Stiles. "Tell me what to do, tell me what to do, tell me!"

She scream and hits and screams and for a second she swears she can hear someone whispering, _stop, Lydia, stop_ , and her hands slam through nothingness because everything is black -

" _Allison!_ "

Lydia falls into Stiles and doesn't do anything, just collapses against his chest, her face buried in his shoulder, and cries softly into his shirt. When her tears run dry she doesn't move, just breathes, reaching down to curl her fingers around Stiles' wrists, feeling the faint beat of his pulse, thinking of that Sylvia Plath line, _I am I am I am_.

"L-Lydia?"

"Hey," she murmurs, lifting her head to look at him. 

He looks confused, afraid, so pale and fragile and somehow still alive. "Lydia?"

She doesn't make him get up this time. She's tired, her throat hurts, and she doesn't know what to do. She leans forward to rest her forehead against his, her tears dripping down onto his face.

She takes a deep breath and then another, and feels the slow steady beat of his heart against her fingertips.

"Hey," he says thickly. "Lydia."

"I'm sorry," she whispers. She runs her hands up his chest, over his shoulders. "I'm so sorry."

"Not your fault," he sighs, fighting to keep his eyes open.

"No." Lydia shakes her head. "I should've figured it out sooner. That whole time you were - and I didn't even - I should've fought harder when he took me, I should've found a way to stop it"-

His cold fingers find her wrists and squeeze. "Not. Your. Fault."

He's so weak, he can barely stay awake. After this is over, after they all come up with a cover story and leave, after they defeat the nogitsune, Stiles sleeps for two weeks, doesn't talk to anyone, and when he comes back to them he's different, strained and tough and Lydia backs away, watches Stiles and Malia get close, watches him get taller and more confident, feels that little bud of love for him in her chest unfurl and stretch painfully against her heart.

"Never wanted you to get hurt," he's muttering. Stiles is so pale he's almost grey, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes.

She tips her head down, presses her lips against his eyelids. "It wasn't you. It was never you." 

He shudders against her, his hands clutching onto her wrists like she's the only thing keeping him together. "I tried - I tried" -

"Shh," she murmurs. "I know. I know how hard you fought. It's okay. It's almost over, I promise. It's okay, Stiles."

She forgets that it's not real, forgets that she's supposed to be searching for a way out. She forgets about everything except Stiles under her, his tears trickling over her lips. She laps up his guilt with her tongue, holds the pieces of him the nogitsune left to die in her hands, kisses the side of his face until there's nothing there anymore.

*

"Lydia, you're so smart, I could kiss you right now!"

The word _don't_ is on the tip of her tongue. Lydia swallows it back, glancing around. 

She did it, she passed to the next level. She's with Stiles, and this is - this is right before he gets taken.

Something's different about this level. It's the light, it has a different quality to it, shimmery and iridescent. In front of her Stiles stands triumphant, unaware that he's about to get ripped away from her, from all of them, that he'll declare his love for her and get taken before she can say it back.

_Remember that I love you._

Suddenly Lydia is smiling just as widely as Stiles because she just has this feeling, this overwhelming confidence that she's almost done, that she's figured it out. 

It's not just that she chose Stiles. It's that she _loves_ him.

"Well?" she asks. "Are you going to kiss me or not?"

He strides forward, brings one hand up to her jaw, and kisses her on the mouth, his lips firm and so real against her, and when he pulls away she's lying on a table in the back room of the animal hospital, sunlight streaming through the windows. Stiles is perched on the edge of the table, beaming proudly at her.

It comes back in a swirl of memory, the mad witch screaming at them, raving about true love and tests of the heart, Stiles jumping in front of her to protect her as a jet of light shot through the air, how everything had dissolved into nothingness.

Behind Stiles she can see Deaton and Scott standing against a wall, looking tired but pleased. Stiles is holding her hand, like that night she'd woken up right here under a mess of glass.

"Did I do it?" she breathes. "I did it?"

Stiles slides a hand under her neck and cradles the back of her head to help her sit up. "Yeah, you did it, you're awake. You're okay, Lydia."

She exhales in relief and drops her head to his shoulder. He feels warm and solid and alive and Lydia shudders, reaching up to grip his arms.

"How'd you figure it out?" he asks softly, one of his hands running through her hair.

She smiles, tipping her head back so she can see him, perfect and whole and real, right here in front of her eyes like magic, except better, because this Stiles is real. "It was easy. I just had to remember that I love you."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for taking the time to read this little mindfuck of a fic! Hope you enjoyed <3 Dialogue is quoted from episodes 1.11 Formality, 2.12 Masterplan, 3.23 Insatiable, and 6.1 Memory Lost, respectably.


End file.
